Chile is the bomb

This week went by super fast, I felt like I was literally just writing home! pero not much happened this week. Ariel was confirmed yesterday! super cool and we are hoping to get him to the temple this friday to do baptisms for his 2 brothers and his father. He is usually tied up with work though. We are praying really hard for him! And if not, at least Conference is this week!! Oh I am SO excited!!! I know our faith and testimonies will be strengthened as we hear the words of the prophet. If we allow it, conference will help improve our 'day to day' lives. We watched the Relief Society broadcast last night and a little girl from our ward, Camilla, was sitting in front of me. She reminded me of Carsyn and when the girls stood up it made me so proud. The love that God has for his daughters was prevalent last night. I miss you Carsyn, I am blowing kisses from here! The conference was super good! It was in spanish so needless to say I had a slight headache after, but I understood a lot! woohoo

We had an almuerzo this week that lasted forever, but they live in this little country house and have a garden, all kinds of flowers, fruits, and animals! They have 7 3-week old puppies. Talk about heaven, so adorable. 

Yeah, not much else happened this week lol. We visited some less actives and a lot of our citas fell through, pero our spirits are high! I know this God's work and it will move forward no matter what! 

Always accept the will of God. 

la fe es el poder= faith is the power

la obediencia es el precio= obedience is the price

el amor es el motivo= love is the motive

el espíritu es la clave= the spirit is the nail

cristo es la razón= christ is the reason

Sorry for the short letter.

Tune in for next week!

Hermana Thompson

Cynthia from our retention

Bryon from retention

ear infection

Hnas Parks, Selk, Pereira, & me at a church activity

caliente cama cooking an egg

look at this.. 

service project in Santa Monica: washing dogs and picking off ticks 

Hellen's nieces & nephew

almuerzo

I ate ASS and it was delicious;)

1 transfer down

Sorry I did not write yesterday, we had reunion de cambios. I am staying with hermana Parks in Padre Hurtado :) Not many changes in our zone, hermana Bustamante is going to train so hermana Selk got a new companion who is living with us. She is super sweet, she is from Paraguay.

So, first off, Ariel was baptized on Sunday!! So awesome! He was so ready and prepared for this day. Seriously such an awesome family. I am so excited to see him grow in the gospel as we teach him the new member lessons. Before he never wanted to ask his boss to get time off but he is asking to have every Sunday off now. milagro. Seriously I feel like we didn't even have to do much lol he was just so ready to be baptized. facil. I hope I can go to their sealing in 1 year haha.

Hermana Parks and I have started cleaning the capilla (chapel) each week. I don't even know how often the church is cleaned right now haha. But we spent like 2 hours on saturday cleaning and making it look nice for the baptism. Mom you would be so proud. I am getting super good at cleaning haha. I think I am develpoing a little ocd. It is good though because things look so much nicer echen clean, especially the chapel. It is the house of the Lord and we should keep it in tip top shape. It should be modeled off the temple as should our homes, clean and pure.

This week we had a lot and I mean A LOT of lessons and plans fall through. I was getting so frustrated and impatient. ¡Que Fume! But through all of this I came to realize that things fall through so we can find other people who need us more; or things happen that needed to take place. God has a plan and it isn't always the same as ours. If a certain lesson had taken place then we wouldn't have been in this place at this time to find this person. It is hard to see through it but things do fall so better things can happen. The Lord's hand is in our daily lives. I know there are people helping us on the other side all the time. I was reading this talk in the Liahona this week and an apostle said "Trials come into our lives to help us recognize Christ." It is so true. When there is a storm in our life, we look for the light of Christ. We rely on Christ and the atonement to carry us to safety.

We read the scriptures daily because the scriptures are literally our spiritual protection from temptation. Marcela is reading the book of mormon again. She is so awesome. She believes this gospel is true, she believes in Christ, she believes the book of mormon is true. The problem is she doesn't have much faith. Belief and faith are such different things. Faith is acting on the things you believe. So right now we are trying to build her faith, but it is so hard when she won't come to church!! ugh. Sometimes I just wish I could make people do things lol. gosh dang albedrio...

Pero ayer at the conference de cambios. Presidente talked a lot about Vision. What is your vision for your misison (life)? What are you going to do to accomplish it? There are going to be people who say you can't but have faith and work towards your goal. You can do it!! Motivation...so what is your Vision going to be?

Ciao
Hermana Thompson

english toffee...fail!

we "mustache" you a question

happy baptism day!

my first baptism! woop woop

cleaning the capilla

graffiti art is everywhere here

chocolate river! want to take a dip? I think not...

bofm we carry around all day every day!

free fruit!

i love my life

Peñaflor Zone

I left my heart in SF 

Carolina is from our ward serving a mini mission en el quisco (coast)

Last week of my first transfer!

Happy St. Patricks day!!

Happy almost birthday Daddy!!!

I hope moving day is coming along for you guys! I wish I was there to make the load a little lighter but I am glad people from the ward helped out. You should have asked the missionaries to help! Dad I got that big strong... handshake from Elder Bertagna lol. I also got dos packages. MUCHISIMOS GRACIAS!!!! en serio it made me so happy to have a little bit of home. Everyone loves seeing pictures of the fam. I get told quite often how beautiful my family is...I always think "I know" haha it's true! 

Anyway, this was a long week but we are making progress with "A"! He is not smoking anymore...Miracle! His wife is so adorable, she is like a mom for us. We had a cita with them last night; we were later than expected because of a missionary meeting, but they waited for us to have 'once'. She has been waiting for her husband to be baptized for years...praying and praying and hoping. She has even propsed to him to marry her in the temple. She calls us her angels because he has been smoking for 25 years and we come in, teach him the word of wisdom and boom lol. This sunday he will be baptized! I am so excited for him and his family. Their grandson is my pololo (boyfriend) ;) They have really taught me patience though. Patience with others and patience with ourselves. We are all trying to reach the same goal, we are just at different points on the path. The only way to reach eternal life together is by helping one another along the way.

Monica and Hellen came to church yesterday!! miracle. Hellen calls me Hermana Barbie lol. Hellen is so ready to be baptized, we are working on getting Monica to church and strengthening her faith. She has witnessed such a big change in her family because of the gospel, I do not doubt one bit that she will be baptized, she just needs a little more time! But we aren't going to baptize Hellen without Monica so we are just strengthening them together to prepare for basptism. 

We also had 2 of our less active families attend church yesterday, super awesome.

Oh! 1 of the hermanos in our retention rodrigo just got married in the temple in the philippines. he brought his wife back and she speaks NO spanish whatsoever. We became friends because she knows english and we are learning español together. :) She is super sweet and strong! What courgae to come to a different country where you don't speak the language...now that is true love! They communicate in english which is kind of funny because neither of them speak english super super well.  Yeah, we had a ward welcome wedding reception friday night for them. Everyone was dancing and a lot of songs were in english...torture. 

Earlier in the week we went on divisions with Hermana Jorgenson, our Hermana leader. She is super great! She taught me a lot. She was so great at asking inspired questions, something I definitely need to work on. We always need to put our trust in the Lord and anytime we have a prompting, just ACT.

"Mar"  flipping finished the book of mormon, but is a little more complicated than we thought!! She knows the book is true and she wants to get baptized. Her husband is where we need to focus...he has some issues. Right now we are visiting with her a lot and strengthening her faith to act, but we really want them to progress as a family. Always be a good listener; be a friend, be kind. A lot of people have inner struggles, you never know what they are going through but if you really pay attention you can be of service. Many people are fighting silent battles and we need to try to help build them up. 

The dogs here are literally crazy! We watched one dog climb up and over a fence like a cat...what the heck?! 

We had some awkwards this week too... People like to confide in us because we are missionaries, but sometimes they just say way too much haha. I am having quite the experience lol. 

Last week we have a mega zone conference with 4 other zones I think (btw dad there are 12 zones in my mission) It just pumped me up so much. I am so grateful to be a missionary! I have so much to learn though and so many things I know I need to do better but I am trying to take it one step at a time. It is not easy being a missionary. One thing that I have really come to realize is that we need to coninually ask if the things we study in the sciptures are true. This week as I was praying I asked Heavenly Father, "are you there listneing to me?" Immediately I thought of the song A Child's Prayer. look it up if you do not know it, inspiring words!

We have another baptismal date for the 6 abril! general conference day. 

Go the extra mile this week to help someone out...we all need some lovin'.

Keep the faith, Trust in the lord with everything you do. Keep on moving forward!

TT, you and your family are in my prayers. Turn to the Lord in this time of need. I know He will be with you every step of the way!!!! You are in my thoughts and prayers. I know the Lord is watching over you. I love you!!

Much love,

Hermana Barbie ;)

MTC Package & Valentine's Day/Birthday Package

 

My loot!

I can be close to Cole anywhere;)

"Selfie"

1 month in the field!

I survived my first earthquake!! It was at 1:30 in the morning (I think on Tuesday), it was like 45 second long and 5.5 magnitude.

Needless to say it has been one heck of a week... rollercoaster. 

We had some big miracles this weekened though! Friday night we went over to a family's home for a visit. The son used to be inactive as well as his mom tambien. We found out he was going to recieve the M priesthood and we were with him when the Elders called to tell him he would be baptizing "K" y su niño. Miracle #1! Miracle 

#2, his abuela was coming into town. Miracle #3, his dad (who has been working 2 shifts at work every day) had dis libre (the day off). His dad, "A" Papa, is our investigator so he went with us to stake conference, witnessed his son receive the priesthood, and attended a baptism! What a spiritual  day!!! We went and gave a spiritual to them Saturday night tambien. The abuela hasn't been to church since her husband died, but during the lesson she started crying and said something has been missing from her life and she will be going back to church. YAY! We committed "A" Papa to be baptized the 23 of Marzo. We had a lesson with him last night and he is going to quit smoking. (pray for him to have the strength to overcome this habit) 

"K" and her son who is 8 were was baptized yesterday :) super awesome! She wasn't our investigator, but she is in our ward. We did service for her at her house, so we have a relationship with them. We waited with her on the side of the font while he was baptized and afterward, they just hugged and kissed and were just glowing. It was such a sweet moment; so happy and pure.

Saturday and sunday were  stake conference and man it was super great! Elder Garcias of the 70 was there. He talked about missionary work on saturday and it was super good. DyC 88:81, we need the members help in rescuing these souls! We must row the boat TOGETHER unto salvation. Sunday was all about families and how the home is a place of love and support where we can learn and grow. It is so important that children are taught the principles of the gospel in the HOME. This gospel is the way to happiness; we need to defend the truth with all that we hare. We need to especially protect our families...these are the last days and we need to be prepared to fight against Satan at all times. 

Oh yeah, friday we put on a plan de salvacion, talk about stressful! so last minute, but it turned out super well. Then, the next day we had to teach a lesson about motivation in Zone Conference. Talk about no time to prepare! lol. Such is life as a missionary;) 

Our very first lesson teaching this guys named "E", we committed him to baptism for the 30 of Marzo and he accepted...we are super stoked! 

Thank you for all the support and love from home! 

Much love,

Hermana Thompson

this chicken reminded me of grandma! 

1 kilo empanada!

walk to Pomaire with my zone

shopping in the tiendas

 
 isn't the sky beautiful here?!

missionaries on the micro!

a good day with Presidente Barreioros y his wife!

I have a pololo ( a 2yr. old boyfriend) ;)

isn't she the cutest thing!